Accused Marine Wants Jury to Hear Classified Info in Murder Trial

CAMP PENDLETON -- A Marine sergeant accused of being the architect of a plot to kidnap and kill an Iraqi man was in court Tuesday as his attorneys battled for permission to let his jury hear classified military information they say is related to his case.

At issue is not the classified nature of the material -- if necessary, the jury could be made up of Marines with security clearance. Rather, the question before a military judge is whether the classified information is relevant in the case of the defendant, Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins against charges that include murder, kidnapping and conspiracy.

It was unclear which pieces of military intelligence defense attorneys want the jury to hear. The discussion of the classified information happened behind closed doors Tuesday afternoon and will continue today.

On Tuesday morning, during an open portion of the pretrial hearing, an intelligence officer took the stand and spoke against public disclosure of the documents.

"There's a plethora of items there that would threaten national security," the officer said in a strong voice. Prosecutors asked that the man's name not be revealed to protect his safety.

The officer testified that disclosing the classified information in Hutchins' case would reveal "our capability to find the enemy," particularly with regard to the way the military gathers intelligence.

Hutchins is one of eight Camp Pendleton troops accused of snatching 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad from his home in the rural village of Hamdania in the early morning hours of April 26, 2006. After marching him a mile or so up the road, the men allegedly shot him and staged the scene to make him look like an insurgent planting a bomb.

Five of the accused men have pleaded guilty to reduced charges in exchange for testifying against the others. Four of them received less than two years in jail; a fact that Hutchins' attorneys want to share with the jury. The fifth man was sentenced to eight years in jail.

-- Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 631-6624 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com

....intelligence officer took the stand and spoke against public disclosure....

...plethora of items there that would threaten national security....Prosecutors asked that the man’s name not be revealed to protect his safety.

....disclosing the classified information in Hutchins’ case would reveal “our capability to find the enemy,” particularly with regard to the way the military gathers intelligence.

After marching him a mile or so up the road, the men allegedly shot him and staged the scene to make him look like an insurgent planting a bomb.
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My WAG.....we are running a PHOENIX-type program, in hopes that it will overcome the idea amongst the enemy that they can continue to plant IED’s without risk beyond actually getting caught in the act......PHOENIX was as much or more a PSYOP than simply eliminating enemy.

I propose this because there is just NO REASON for them to have (in public view) “marched him a mile” up the road other than to send the message that he was involved in IED’s, we knew it as well as the locals did; and that this was going to be the result from now on............the very nature and purpose of PHOENIX-type ops dictate that some of it be buried deeply and some in plain sight.

The intelligence officer states, "There's a plethora of items there that would threaten national security".

I would be willing to bet what he doesn't want released is the info that was contained in Lt. Phan's "thumb drive", which, allegedly, was destroyed by an NCIS agent in the presence of the 3/5 Legal Officer and the K/3/5 CoCdr. (See this thread, Scorching memorandum obtained from the Lt. Nathan Phan hearing)

The "thumb drive" might have been instructions from the Company or Battalion as to what, when and how Sgt Hutchins and his squad were to carry out their patrol that night.

This appears to be another "smoke screen" and the Defense Counsel should call their hand. More knowledge folks than me say this used to call this a "Frag Order" or Fragmentation Order. Time will tell and sooner or later it will all come out in the wash. Hopefully, sooner.

The Operation Phoenix reference seems to me to be one profound thought!

I never considerd it. It would explain the previous knowlege that Awad, in the Lendleton 8 case, was a known insurgent, and that Hutchin’s squad was being sent to that specific area.

While the rules of engagement were most likely not as open as Phoenix were, the intent would be the same: Find the enemy and kill them.

And, in order to hide that aggression of extensive use of force to kill only one or two bad guys, they are hiding the NEW Phoenix program, thus; crucifying these men hided the OPSEC of it all...

(from post 49 on the thread you linked)

Lt Phan, whose family immigrated from Vietnam, and who has served his country honorably both as an enlisted Marine and an officer, arrived in Iraq in January 2006. Rather than perform the traditional infantry mission he and his platoon were prepared and trained for, without notice or any training or guidance, Lt Phan was assigned to conduct Counter Insurgency Operations in Anbar province, the hotbed of insurgency operations in Iraq. Among other things, he was tasked with detaining possible terrorists and insurgents and stopping their use of deadly improvised explosive devices “at all costs”. By all accounts from within his unit and up his chain of command, Lt Phan was extremely successful – it is beyond dispute that his platoon gathered more useful intelligence, detained more suspected terrorists, and discovered more weapons caches than any other platoon in his company. For example, due to Lt. Phan’s tireless efforts, a deadly sniper cell responsible for several Marine deaths was eliminated, and a vicious kidnapping cell that had long plagued the area was finally destroyed.
*******************snip*********************
In addition to the hypocrisy and inconsistency regarding the alleged “victims,” the government has also dallied in gross and wanton destruction of important evidence in order to prevent its use by Lt. Phan in his effort to exonerate himself. For example, just before he was sent back to Camp Pendleton from Iraq in order to face the subject charges, a representative of Lt. Phan’s command seized from him a flash drive (a.k.a. thumb drive). This device, sanctioned if not provided by his command, was used by Lt. Phan to store important electronic information for use in his mission. Among other things, orders and messages from his commanders were transmitted to him via this device. It also contained many other notes, charts and memoranda created by Lt. Phan based on information transmitted to him by his commanders and local sources. Instead of preserving this invaluable piece of evidence, his command representative instead destroyed it – without verifying its contents or making a copy. Worse, this took place in the presence of the Battalion Staff Judge Advocate (an attorney for the government) who not only failed to prevent the destruction of the thumb drive, but actually approved it!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1777758/posts#49
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after reading the above, I am a little more inclined to suspect an “unofficial” PHOENIX operation, in which the participants were not told that if politically-motivated plausible deniability became necessary they would be sacrificed.....I assume that Lt Phan was the platoon leader of these Marines. I am also wondering if Lt Phans father was an operative for the US in Vietnam, and perhaps even the PHOENIX program, as many of the Vietnamese who got out and to the US at the end........it is very easy to recognize that a father passing down details and methods etc of PHOENIX to his son would attract the attention of the military as a potential asset to be employed under the radar.

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